Nana in Værløse II

For the record: it’s late on a Sunday night after a very busy day, and I’m watching the Pats play a beautiful game against the Titans in a snow-swept Foxboro while the four females in the household sleep peacefully. This is going to be more about the pictures than the commentary.

(I’m also gearing up for a massive Nana visit video, but that’ll come later in the week.)

We resume coverage of Nana’s visit on Monday, when Trine stayed home with Maddie while Nana, Molli Malou, and I went in to Tivoli. We parked at Lyøvej on the way, so we got some shots of Molli Malou with both her grandmothers. Here is the best of them:

Tivoli in October is all about Halloween, and though it’s hardly a state fair they do have prize pumpkins on display. Here’s the winner.

And the runners-up.

Followers of this blog know Tivoli inside-out by now, so we’ll just cut to the pics and forget about any pretense of witty commentary…

Back at the ranch…

On Tuesday Denmark played Hungary in a World Cup qualifier. Molli Malou’s børnehaven teachers got all the kids into the spirit.

Mormor and Jørgen invited us down for a lovely dinner, of which I think I have more video than pictures. I do have this shot of Molli Malou setting up her bookstore, however.

Back at the ranch (again)…

Today, the 18th, Mormor came up to babysit Maddie while the rest of us went to the Experimentarium, Denmark’s science museum for kids.

See the happy girl in the following pic.

Well, after taking that picture Daddy turned his attention elsewhere until a few moments later he heard frantic screams of “DADDY! DADDY!” — apparently this happy spinning chair was actually some kind of weird perpetually spinning and accellerating chair that uses your own weight to — well, who the hell knows. But when I finally reacted to the frantic calls, I found a girl spinning at twice the speed of sound, screaming so wildly that the whole huge room fell silent to see what abusive parent had tortured a child so reprehensibly.

I calmed her down and led her to a different exhibit, a “flying carpet” which was basically a carpet hovercraft on a sheer surface. Molli Malou waited patiently for some kid to finish using it, then went walking toward the carpet for her turn. Two other kids came bounding out of nowhere and leaped at the carpet just as she got there, and one of them literally dove at it.

Next thing I knew, Molli Malou was crying. I assumed, based on previous experience, that Molli Malou was outraged by this kid’s flagrant abuse of good manners. “Screw her,” I told her, “Get back on there! You were there first, don’t let them bully you off!”

Bless her heart, Molli Malou actually did take a few uncertain steps back toward the carpet, at which point I noticed that everything around us was spattered with blood.

Molli Malou suddenly turned toward me and revealed a nose practically spouting blood.

It took some time to staunch the bleeding and calm her down, but not as much as you might think. And our visit continued.

(These pictures will make more sense in the context of the videos to come.)

Wind tunnel!

Home. Tonight. Time to carve pumpkins. We let Molli Malou clean them of their guts.

I began carving the face into the first pumpkin while she cleaned the second.

And at her request, I made mine a scary Dr. Evil pumpkin.

But at HER request… she got to carve the second pumpkin. Seriously. We gave a 5-year-old a cutting tool and let her go to town.

New favorite photo ever: Molli Malou’s concentration captured from WITHIN her pumpkin.

How do you spell pride?

Yeah, P R I D E. Me too. But still…

And with a light…

And there we are.

(And Tom Brady has just thrown his 6th TD within the last like 17 minutes of football, so I am not turning this game off even though it’s nearly half past twelve here already!)